The present invention generally relates to food source information tracking and transferring systems and methods. More specifically, the present invention relates to food source information transferring system and method for a meat-packing facility that chops and packages processed carcasses from a livestock slaughterhouse. Furthermore, the present invention also relates to transferring and pairing food source information from hook radio frequency identification (RFID) tags incorporated in a hook for a hook machine to individual meat packages with package labels during meat-packing operations.
Conventional food source information tracking methods from a livestock farm to meat processing and distribution chains often lack a desirable level of transparency, data robustness, and data security. In conventional food source information tracking methods, food source information originating from a particular livestock farm is often lost, corrupted, or compromised in meat processing and distribution channels such as livestock slaughterhouses and meat-packing facilities. For example, as paper tags or livestock animal RFID tags are removed from animal carcasses on a hook machine in a livestock slaughterhouse, much of the original food source information contained on the paper tags or livestock animal RFID tags are lost, corrupted, or compromised as each carcass undergoes meat processing and chopping operations. The loss of original producer-level food source information worsens further as subsequent meat processing, such as meat-chopping, meat-packing, and additional transit operations are performed after animal carcasses are initially processed in the livestock slaughterhouse. In some cases, only the country of origin or the state of origin may remain as a single piece of retained information by the time meat is completely processed and packaged in a meat-packing facility.
In many cases, conventional food source information tracking methods undermine and compromise data security and data integrity when food source information is transferred from one meat production or processing operation to another meat production or processing operation, because much of the information transfer process is manual and labor-intensive without automated and secure data transfer mechanism. For example, conventional paper tags require hand transcriptions to transfer data from one operation to another, while conventional long-frequency (LF) RFID tags merely provide an undesirably short tag-reading distance that hampers implementation of a high-throughput, automated, and secure food source information transferring mechanism.
Moreover, in recent years, outbreak control and containment of contagious diseases and epidemics have become an important concern in modern livestock farming and meat processing and sales industry. If contagious livestock diseases or epidemics are discovered after meat is already processed and distributed, accurately tracing the sources of meat products that may have been impacted by the contagious livestock diseases or epidemics is a challenging task when only high-level food source information, such as the country or the state of origin, is retained in processed meat packages. Conventional meat product tracing methods for reduction of public health risks do not typically provide a fine level of detail or pinpoint accuracy to prevent distribution or sale of the dangerous meat products efficiently. For example, meat products from a particular country or a state may be entirely discarded or banned as a group, even if the source of contagious livestock diseases or epidemics may have been limited to one particular livestock farm, one particular slaughterhouse, or one particular meat-packing facility among hundreds of meat processing and distribution channels in that country or state. The lack of fine details in food source information as well as the lack of data transparency and security in conventional food source tracking methods often necessitate mass disposal of meat products and import bans from an entire country or a state.
Furthermore, the lack of fine details in food source information in conventional food source information tracking methods also make accurate tracking of livestock transactions throughout meat processing and distribution channels difficult for local, state, and national governments. The lack of transactional data transparency among livestock farms, slaughterhouses, meat-packing facilities, and distribution channels impede governments from providing helpful oversight and effective agricultural policies. The governments may also find accurate taxation on livestock transactions difficult due to the lack of transactional data accuracy and transparency in meat processing and distribution channels.
Therefore, it may be beneficial to provide a food source information transferring system in a meat-packing facility that can accurately, securely, and electronically pair livestock farm-level information that are retained in an RFID tag per carcass to be associated with a package label for a meat package, even after meat chopping and packing operations are completed. Furthermore, it may also be beneficial to provide a method of transferring and tracking food source information between processed carcasses from a livestock slaughterhouse and a meat-packing facility responsible for chopping and packing the processed carcasses. In addition, it may also be beneficial to devise a holistic information technology (IT) infrastructure at various levels of meat processing and distribution chains for systematic and robust management of food source information.